liveapathofheart.blog

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  • Hello world!

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  • Be.

    Can we have a boho reading nook and an outdoor shower and can we hold hands as we think about it?

    Will you stand with me in the garden and look about?

    Will you sit near as I pull weeds or plant the PLANTIES?

    Maybe we will like the same throws?

    Some of those small round plates?

    Take a bath with me won’t you?

    It’s getting late.

    And I just want to BE… with you.

  • In the Spring

    In the spring

    When my heart is hung out to dry

    Birds chirp in the budding lilac trees

    And I crinkle my eyes in the sunshine 

    And feel grateful I can sleep with the windows wide

    Cooling my skin

    I clunk through the house farting around, intermittently happy and intermittently crumpled on the ground or in the leather chair or the bed, wondering if I’ll ever, ever be suitable again for human consumption. 

    There’s no room here for someone else and simultaneously too much fucking freedom and space and nothing to fill it with but me. 

    My heart. 

    Eyes and hands looking in

    Growing… something. 

    It seems more precious than could have been baked before. 

    With you. 

    I am trying so hard here. 

    And trying to stop trying. 

    To let go

    To surrender god dammit!

    But I haven’t yet been able to stop. 

    Sitting in my chair with my bless-Ed broken foot, accidentally falling in love with you over and over again.

    It’s gotta stop. 

    Cause here comes the Sun. 

  • Ashes to dust

    Heart

    Still

    Hopeful

    Even

    As

    I

    Grind

    The

    Ashes

    Under

    My

    Boot

  • Letting Grief Be

    I’m going through grief. All phases of it, all stages of it; every little morsel is pelting me in the forehead and large chunks sucker punch me in the gut. There is sweet, honest gratitude for the experiences and love that was/is and that I am loosing as well.

    When I have gone through grief in the past it has felt like a truck hitting me. Stabbing pain in my gut and my heart, inability to breathe, inability to function, lots of bed time, lots of time crying. But this time seems different.

    It is definitely not different due to the quality of the loss, let me tell you. The man I am loosing is my favorite man. I would have spent the rest of my days wrapped around him if I could. But its not to be anymore. I’ve never quite gone through this type of thing where I actively love someone yet am not able to be with them anymore, feels like a death.

    Its not been easy either, I don’t want to make it sound like that, but its been a different experience of being with my grief in a way I’ve not been before.

    The difference is that while I have had time where I hurt immensely and felt like I couldn’t breathe, I was able to stay with the feelings, see them as energy, not let them take me over and even to notice that, wow I AM breathing. And cooking and working and running and taking care of my kid! I AM BREATHING! Even in the face of this loss. The energy of the grief is a painful feeling but if I switch the way I think of it as an energy I am being with, as an energy, a necessary moving through. A process that must be witnessed and allowed, then the grief does not take me over and I don’t drown in the tears.

    Some small practices : placing my hands on my heart and my solar plexus, providing holding to myself, because shiz, what I really need right now is HUG! So I’m holding myself.

    When I notice that I am making stories in my head about what the other may be doing or thinking, or feeling confounded about his motives, I am instead, again, turning towards myself, focusing on my heart and the solar plexus which for me is where the pain resides. When I notice I am reaching outward toward him, I am reaching in. I am sending all that longing for my former lover and sending the love I want so desperately to give, to. my. self.

    I am intentionally doing anger and grief release and crying for some time everyday, so that there is an outlet everyday. I have noticed that when I do not consciously release trauma and or grief out of my body with bio energetic exercise like kicking or letting my muscles shake, that it lodges in my body and becomes what begins to feel like depression. I realized this recently when my daughter had a seizure, and I was able to see the feelings solidifying into a depressive feeling from not being released properly!

    It’s important to get support. I am talking about a friend, sponsor or therapist, but I am also talking about touching and holding another human or even a dog or cat if you can. This has become some what hard for us in covid times I know, but do your best. Get a massage if you can. We all need connection.

    Please come and share in a wonderful, awesome retreat with me and my mentor Donna Roe Danielle this coming July 2021 in Taos Ski Valley in the mountains of Northern New Mexico! We are in the early sign up period so you can save some money by signing up now! Sign up before April 1st! Share with you friends and DM me with questions or on the website.

    Rebirthing in Nature in Taos – July 22-25, 2021

  • The Blessing

    I’m in a rad weekly women’s group where we get together weekly in Ceremony and grow together. Our assignment this week was to come up with personal blessing for ourselves to say to the part of ourselves that needs unconditional regard, unconditional love. ❤️

    I happen to be having super hard week with my ego and shame and self abandoning behaviors and was feeling kinda dark and at a loss for even how to begin such an assignment.

    I was sitting at Twirl play-space (a kid playground mecca) today in the sun, children playing; ruminating on the deep inexplicable sadness I was feeling in the face of all this sunlight;) the observer in me smiling at my current inability to be present.

    So sitting in that park I just placed my hand on my heart and I heard:

    I am good.

    That made me feel a little better. So I tried again and again; I kept allowing more and before I knew it, this blessing tumbled out. The darkness I realized, abated:

    I am good
    I am worthy of love
    I am worthy of others staying with me
    I am worthy of myself
    I am a creative magical being
    Each cell in my body is a masterful creator
    I am healed
    I am healing
    All I need to do is beam my own unique frequency no more no less
    My hearts capacity is limitless
    I am gratitude
    I am abundant
    I am sane and create ease in my psyche
    I can take care of myself financially
    I am able
    I am healthy

    These blessings are the opposite of some of my core belief structures that have been keeping me stuck, as well as keeping me safe. And I am dismantling them piece by piece.

    Initially the simplicity of “I am good” really spoke to the core of my beliefs about my worthiness to exist in this world. But a close friend, after reading my blessing, sent me a message that called me to the carpet about how I tend to play small. I have a fear that I’m too much sometimes. Don’t get too Big Jennifer! Don’t be tooooo MUCH cause they’ll leave if you’re too much, if you’re too little, if you don’t play at what they want you to be.

    So here is what my friend said that both made me laugh and made me go, “Hey! Yeah!!:

    Griffo: “Dude you’re killing me… just look at you. That should be enough (you). No need to recite hymns. You’re hot fun, not a hot mess. Sexy and alphatastic. So FUCK OFF with the “I’m GOOD”. You’re a fucking badass, bitchin-ass chick. “I am good”… boring!”

    So along with being good enough for myself and worthy enough to myself, I’m going to bless myself that I am HOT-FUN, SEXY and ALPHATASTIC!!

    Thank you, thank you very much!

    ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️🙏🏼❤️❤️❤️#gratefulheart #liveapathofheart #worthy #blessingsandlove  #recovery #learningselflove 

     

  • The Other

    And she said to him, Tom, love

    Life is long… you have no idea what the

    universe has in store for you.

    Or for me.

    We tip our hats to fate.

    Measure our steps in the sand.

    Breathe the cold air into our lungs and just

    be with what is.

    And we keep reminding each other of this,

    even as we grow older.

    Even as time and the arduous, trudging

    journey threatens to harden our hearts.

    This is why we love each other,

    this reminding each other.

    And he said Jen, love…

    Be soft sweetheart.

    We speak the words and we run with the

    wind.

    Let the universe have you for now and

    Don’t forget.

    That life, it is long… and we know not what

    the other will have in store for us along

    the way.

  • Arrow

    Today I am like an arrow
    Sailing with grace through space
    Heart, held in my hands, riding shotgun 🙏🏼47684280_10155975291901444_4950786614298148864_n

  • Give Thanks

    When the defeating sounds of my mind subside

    After the thoughts stop tumbling all over themselves, I can hear the music again

    I feel my eyes relax in their sockets.

    Ideas, accusations stop firing away in directions that no good will come of

    No more grasping

    I stand

    Heart pulsing

    Lungs breathing

    Maybe or maybe not

    My mind is open, my heart is open

    Light falls on circumstance and my raised hands lift it up and out of me,

    Let it go, fall where it may

    Gratitude replaces wanting desire, I am full already

    Moments of dank emptiness evaporate in the warmth of the divine.

    Give Thanks, give thanks, give thanks 🙏🏼

  • Sweet Ache

    “When the sweet ache of being alive,

    Lodged between who you are

    And who you will be,

    Is awakened,

    Befriend this moment.

    It will guide you.

    Its sweetness is what holds you.

    Its ache is what moves you on.” –Mark Nepo

    I talk a lot with my clients about how most addictions are simply humans looking for an outside answer to an inside problem.

    I’ve had this hole that I’ve always tried to fill with substances, shopping, dating men, adrenaline sports, the glorification of being busy, desire… the list goes on. Anything I can I try to use to fill that void.

    The universe is not having that behavior from me any more and has systematically removed vice by vice from my grip. Until just recently when I am facing what feels like true aloneness, unable to fill this void with food, sex, or dating.

    Still got the sports thank God, but I better be careful and stay in balance with it otherwise I foresee an injury and removal of that outlet too.

    I did ask for this. Since I can remember every wish I wished was simply to be happy. Man has that wish come true! My life is amazing, but with amazing there must sometimes be suffering. (I think the difference now is that I am aware this too shall pass and there is now an underlying ok-ness even in the face of darkness that rarely leaves me now).

    Creator is making me sit in my shit and stew at the moment; it’s a little terrifying. But I’m learning. The practice of transmutation of suffering to light is happening.

    This hole, this woundedness as I’ve come to call it, seems to be the original deep gash dealt when I was a baby (or maybe came into this lifetime with) and that was reinforced as I grew up. It is made up of abandonment, unworthiness, the vision I get when I breathe into the area of my body where I feel the pain well up, in my solar plexus, is that of a baby or small child reaching up to be picked up, screaming for love and not receiving it and that of a little girl being bullied and told she was ugly.

    I am thankful that the therapy modalities I have been studying for the last decade have acquainted me with these parts of myself, over the years I have worked on acknowledging them when I feel suffering related to attachment or abandonment. Recently though I have been fortunate to get really close to these parts and start to begin holding this little girl part of myself when she reaches up for love and holding.

    I have gotten from the inside out on a body and energetic/ emotional level that attachment to outside answers to inside woundeness causes suffering. And it seems giving this little part what no other can give her is the only sane answer, since when ever I let her look to another human for love it causes attachment to outcomes and expectation, and inevitable let down as no one can always live up to those expectations and then: suffering.

    I have gotten some good practice with this lately. I’ve been dating someone who does not live near me and after each interaction I can spend time alone holding myself, providing containment and self love, I can let go of the attachment anew every time I see this person or even after we have conversations.

    To my surprise this does not diminish my caring, in fact when I can adequately take care of myself I feel so free and good that I naturally want to be available to him, to be sweet and good to him.

    I can really see the insanity with which I have been operating in my life thus far previous to having this set of tools to at least TRY to give myself what I so desperately needed without having to demand it from the other. Which is what I always asked partners to do in the past.

    Make me feel you love me, make me feel worthy, make me feel less abandoned.

    It never works, because the original woundedness is still there. Never to be filled by this outside answer.

    (And just FYI, NO ONE is saying I do this perfectly, but the more I love myself the more I realize that I don’t HAVE to fucking do everything perfectly and I am still lovable even if I fuck it up, right?! Right)

    And then when a partner does give love or acceptance, it’s like a bonus. And I can really recive it now. That’s a by product I didn’t realize would happen. Instead of grasping the love and looking for what’s next, I’m able to bathe in it.

    Mark Nepo talks about each of us coming into these existences with a gift and an emptiness. That, part of the aim of living is to find where these two meet.

    I am practicing now falling into the void, into the emptiness. It is scary, terrifying. Logically my brain says to my limbic system that it WILL be ok. There is no actual mortal danger, but my small baby parts equate that void, that emptiness to annihilation or death.

    SO, that is where my gifts come in. My LOVE, my COMPASSION, my CONNECTEDNESS to the DIVINE. By loving these small parts and having compassion through my connection to the divine I am made whole and therefore loveable, truly lovable I hope, to others. And from that place may I be able to truly love others in turn.

    “When we dig a hole or a hole is dug in us, we become preoccupied with all that is unearthed, even try to put all that dirt back, but the empty depth is waiting for us to shine a light in it” –Mark Nepo